A transgender nonbinary American fled the U.S. for a German asylum camp after last summer's Roe v. Wade reversal, lamenting that trans people are being labeled as "groomers" and "sexual predators" and, after the national right to an abortion was stripped, the country could soon set its sights on attacking LGBTQ communities.
"I have known that I have needed to leave America for a long time. But I officially made the decision when the American Supreme Court brought down their ruling that eliminated a person's rights to terminate pregnancy," Robin Cóir told VICE News in a recent interview.
"I made the decision very quickly because I felt like I was imminently in danger."
Cóir, who uses they/them pronouns, also told VICE, that they feel as if, though there are good people in America, there are also many who want to "kill" trans people like themself.
"I find the possibility of somebody coming to attack me—whether intentionally or I just happen to be in an area filled with other LGBT people—too significant, especially with the conversation around us now being so vilifying."
"We are now being called—all of us—sexual child predators," they added, referring to instances of Republican lawmakers pushing back against LGBTQ+ ideology in U.S. classrooms as well as GOP-led legislation restricting other transgender expressions, including crackdowns on biological males entering women's sports and disallowing people from using locker rooms or restrooms that don't correspond with their biological sex.
Cóir said that they told their mother that leaving the U.S. was their sole alternative to suicide after the Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health decision last June effectively ended the right to abortion nationwide.
"'If I stay in America, I will commit suicide because I'm terrified of what the bigots would do to me,'" they recalled saying.
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They also shared that they originally planned to seek asylum in Denmark.
Cóir sought asylum in the German camp last August so they could avoid being forced to return to the U.S., but is not the only trans person looking to flee the country.
In a separate piece, VICE followed TRANSport, a fledgling nonprofit organization known for helping transgender Americans fund their exits abroad in light of so many claiming to feel threatened at home.
Cóir contacted TRANSport to help with their move abroad, telling VICE that the group's existence hints at an exodus of trans Americans in light of culture wars raging at home.
"The existence of such a group tells me that I'm definitely not the only one who's dealing with this. If this is being organized to help transgender people seek asylum, hopefully there is something that they can do to help me in all of this, but I'm likely going to end up going back to America," they added.
"If I go back to America, I will be employed; my old job has agreed to take me back. I have insurance. I can do all the job applications online while in America, too. The main catch is, of course, the whole reason I left in the first place: I think a bigot is going to end up killing me, possibly in a slaughter like what we've experienced at Club Q."
Trans Americans are not the only group threatening to leave the U.S. after the Supreme Court's landmark decision last June.
In July, a survey from BestColleges found that the court's decision will impact some Gen Z students' decisions to stay or go – even with some looking to move to different, more abortion-friendly parts of the U.S.
"I want to leave the country [after graduating]," University of South Dakota student and pro-choice activist Lexi McKee-Hemenway said at the time, according to CNBC.
37% claimed they would have opted to attend college in another state if the court's decision had come earlier.
